US Veterans Praise Their Forgotten Ally

This week, as the world marks the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, those who fought remember China's contribution to the victory. Zhai Xiang reports for Xinhua.

On Aug 15, 1945, Dick Whitaker, a member of the Sixth Marine Division of the United States Marine Corps, was on the island of Guam when he heard of the Japanese surrender.

The end of World War II also signaled the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), fought exclusively on Chinese soil.

"I was training for the invasion of Japan, scheduled for November 1945, in which I would very likely have been killed," Whitaker said. "The victory saved my life and properly avenged Pearl Harbor."

On Dec 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, a US naval base in Hawaii, killing thousands of military personnel and civilians.

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt described it as "a date which will live in infamy", and the United States declared war on Japan the following day.

Xinhua has interviewed US veterans and their families by phone or email to hear about their memories of the victory and their hopes for the future.

The Battle of Okinawa

"When I turned 16, I began to think about the possibility of serving in the military," Whitaker, now 91, recalled.

Upon graduation in 1942 and 1943, several of his friends joined the military. Whitaker enlisted in the summer of 1944, and landed at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands with the Sixth Marine Division just six months later.

"My mission was to win battles, to defeat Japan, and hopefully to survive intact," he said.

"We sailed from Guadalcanal on March 13, 1945, my 19th birthday. On April 1, 1945, we landed in Okinawa."

The Battle of Okinawa lasted 82 days and was one of WWII's fiercest. Whitaker's regiment suffered heavy losses, with 82 percent of his comrades wounded or killed. Last year, Hacksaw Ridge, a film based on the story of the battle, was a hit with audiences in both China and the US.

"After 82 days of killing Japanese soldiers, which was very satisfying at the time, I came to feel sorry for them," he said.

"They were treated badly by their superiors. They were starving. They were fighting for a lost cause and instructed to kill themselves if defeated - not much of a plan!"

The battle left more than 90,000 Japanese soldiers dead; only 7,400 were taken prisoner. About 100,000 local civilians lost their lives.

"I weighed about 115 pounds (52 kilograms), having lost about 20 pounds on Okinawa," Whitaker said.

After WWII, Whitaker's division was dispatched to Qingdao in East China's Shandong province to work on repatriating Japanese forces from North China.

"We were there for six months. I will never forget the welcome I received. The Chinese are fine people," he said.

"The Japanese soldiers we rounded up and sent back to Japan knew we were Marines and would take no nonsense," Whitaker said. "They were very aware of our reputation and our hatred of them. They were docile and seldom made eye contact."

On a Greyhound bus at 3 am on Memorial Day, May 27, 1946, Whitaker arrived in Saugerties, New York, a town just 35 kilometers from Hyde Park, Roosevelt's hometown.

"The parade started at 11 am. I went with my mom and dad and had my hand shaken 100 times. It was a great day to get home from a war," Whitaker recalled.

Before retirement, he spent 28 years at Kent School in Connecticut as director of public relations, alumni secretary and assistant secretary to the board of trustees.

He now volunteers on the carrier USS Yorktown in South Carolina, and speaks at schools and retirement homes.

Belated apology

Lester Tenney landed in the Philippines in late November 1941. He was age 21 and had been married for just two months.

Tenney joined the National Guard in 1940: "I knew that the United States was going to have a draft, so I voluntarily entered the service."

What he did not know was that within a month of his arrival in Asia, Japan would attack Pearl Harbor and the Philippines.

When Japan defeated the United States on the Bataan Peninsula in April 1942, 78,000 US and Filipino soldiers surrendered.

Following the largest-ever US overseas surrender, the Japanese forced their prisoners of war to walk more than 100 kilometers to their camp, offering little or no food and water. Thousands died during what became known as the Bataan Death March.

Tenney survived, strengthened, he said, by his love and affection for his young wife. He spent the latter years of the war as a slave in a Japanese coal mine.

When Japan announced its surrender, the Japanese camp commander gathered the POWs at Omuta, less than 64 kilometers from Nagasaki, where the US had dropped an atomic bomb six days before, and announced that "Japan and the United States are now friends".

"Then all the Japanese soldiers simply left the camp," said Tenney, who had been transferred to Omuta.

"Out of around 12,000 American POWs there, only 1,500 survived to the end."

He was so weak he remained in hospital for a year.

While news of Bataan reached his wife, there was no confirmation of Tenney's fate. His wife waited three years for news, even though she was told that Tenney was "presumed dead".

After the war, Tenney discovered that she had remarried just months earlier. More than 70 years later, he recalled the revelation as "a tremendously traumatic experience", but he got back on his feet.

"It was easy for a veteran to get a job, but I wanted to get an education. I hadn't had a chance to because of the war," he said. "I wanted to be a better member of society."

He eventually gained a doctorate from the University of Southern California and became a professor.

In his later years, he was an active campaigner for both an admission of responsibility and apology from Japan. It was thanks in part to his efforts, that in 2009, the Japanese ambassador to the US, Ichiro Fujisaki, delivered a "heartfelt apology" for "having caused tremendous damage and suffering" to the Bataan victims.

Tenney joined other victims in a class action against several Japanese mining companies for reparations. "They were afraid that if they apologized, we would sue them," he said, speaking before his death in February at age 96.

Nightmare's end

On Aug 15, 1945, Jay Vinyard, who served in the US Air Force between 1942 and 1946, was in St. Joseph, Missouri, with his wife.

"We heard the news (of Japan's surrender) on the radio in our hotel room. We watched from our hotel room window as the crowds gathered below on the streets to celebrate," he recalled.

"It was quite a sight; a once-in-a-lifetime event. Aug 15, 1945, will always be remembered by me as the day when victory finally arrived after so many terrible years of devastating conflict. It also proved that when two great powers such as China and the US agree on a goal and work together to accomplish it, they will always be victorious in the end."

In 1944, he was assigned to fly "the Hump", a vital airlift route over the Himalayas and the primary way the Allies supplied China between 1942 and 1945. Ahead of the 2015 Victory Day parade in Beijing, China awarded Vinyard a medal for his services.

"Like all members of our armed forces, I felt that day finally brought an end to a great nightmare, and that we would now be able to get on with the rest of our lives," he said.

US General Claire Lee Chennault, founder of the American Volunteer Group, was on his way back to the US when the Japanese surrendered. The squadron, better known as the Flying Tigers, was a legendary air corps that fought alongside the Chinese against Japan during WWII.

"He was of course extremely relieved, after eight years of combat, that we were victorious. He had served both countries to the best of his ability and now they were at peace," Nell Calloway, Chennault's granddaughter, said.

"The sign of the Flying Tiger during WWII was a symbol of victory for people of both the United States and China. When the war ended, this symbol never faded from the minds of people who were liberated, and it remains a symbol of fascination for people in both countries. People may not remember the history it represents, but they remember that it represents a historic moment.

"We have a responsibility to all who sacrificed so much to put aside our differences in a time of peace and make the world a better place."

China's suffering ignored

Frank Losonsky, now 96 and one of only two surviving Flying Tigers, was a crew chief.

He was in the US training as a B-29 flight engineer when he heard the news of the Japanese surrender.

"Today, Aug 15 means remembering those who died in the hope of peaceful times," he said.

While WWII ended 72 years ago, a few diehards in Japan still avoid acknowledging the suffering inflicted.

In Whitaker's opinion, "old-school" Japanese leaders remain uncomfortable with their mistakes and defeat: "They lost face and are attempting to restore that old respect they once had."

In December, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Pearl Harbor to "pray for the souls of the victims".

"I say, 'stay home,'" Whitaker said, when asked for his reaction to the gesture. "We will never forgive Japan for its sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, and nothing they could ever do will ever alter the events of Dec 7, 1941, a 'day of infamy'."

Jan Thompson, a professor at Southern Illinois University, was angry at the abuse her late father received at the hands of the Japanese during the three years he spent as a POW.

"The POWs I knew did not buy Japanese products, like Japanese cars and TVs," she said.

The Japanese government has apologized to US POWs and their families as a gesture of reconciliation. Thompson believes Japan could apply this model to other countries.

"There is still so much tension in East Asia, and it is all because of WWII," she said.

"WWII is so important for what is going on in Asia now. We have to be accurate and embrace the truth, no matter how painful."

China fought shoulder to shoulder with the Allies and made a major contribution to the victory.

Perry Dahl, who enlisted in 1940 and fought in the Pacific, shot down nine Japanese fighter jets.

"I was 17 years old when I joined the National Guard," he said. "Everyone then was rather patriotic. My colleagues and I wanted to do the best we could for China as an ally. China's contribution to WWII is undervalued."

Throughout WWII, China was a major battlefield in the fight against the Japanese invasion. By the time the Japanese surrendered in 1945, about 35 million Chinese military personnel and civilians had lost their lives or were wounded.

"The symbolic value of the Flying Tigers is as important today as it was then. It represents a time when two great peoples put aside their differences and defeated an enemy that sought to conquer the world," Calloway said.